John Steinbeck Mini Reading Plan

My thoughts on The Grapes of Wrath

This month has been very busy with work and other obligations that have left me with little time for writing or creative energy. Reading is always my choice of escape and way of mentally refreshing myself.

As I have talked about previously, I am slowly making my way through The Great American Read list. This has been going on for several years and for February, my choice of book of the list was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

I somehow managed to get through high school without reading any Steinbeck, and ventured into East of Eden a couple of years ago and loved it. It left me wanting to learn more about Steinbeck and finish some of his other books. So I decided to turn my reading into a short Steinbeck reading plan.

I felt like I knew virtually nothing about him as a person so I decided to include Mad at the World, the most recent biography of Steinbeck. I also wanted to read Of Mice and Men as a warm up and because I had heard so many great recommendations of that particular book.

I decided to listen to the audiobook of Mad at the World while reading the other two novels. Here are my thoughts and reviews on these three books:

Of Mice and Men:

This is a short book (roughly 100 pages) and follows two men George and Lennie as they travel around looking for work. Lennie is a big, strong man and loves to feel soft things and loves small animals. He gets into trouble because he is so big but mentally is more like a child. George looks after Lennie and acts as his guardian, of sorts. The book starts with the men on the run because Lennie had gotten into trouble and the two men end up at a ranch working to save money to buy a small farm where they can settle down and Lennie can tend to the rabbits.

I won’t give away too much of the rest of the story but I absolutely loved this small book. The book also reminded me of Stephen King’s The Green Mile where John Coffey is the large but simple minded man with Paul Edgecomb as his protector, of sorts. I love seeing connections in literature! I feel as if Stephen King must have been heavily influenced by Steinbeck in many of his books and they read similarly as well.

I loved the down to earth feel of the book as its many characters are simple men and the time period is bleak for the common man. I would recommend this book to anyone but I do find it interesting that it is often assigned in high school. I personally was glad that I hadn’t read it before now because I felt like I could appreciate it in ways teenage Ryan would not have been able to see.

I also watched the 1992 film adaptation with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich and thought it followed the book really closely. I highly recommend it.

Mad at the World:

This Steinbeck biography was published in 2020 and comes in, short for a biography, at 368 pages. Having not read anything else about Steinbeck, I found it to be a good introduction to the man and his life. The book focuses most on his life as an author and his writing and covers some of his personal life including his three marriages and glosses over his failures as a father.

This is a good introduction to Steinbeck but leaves you wanting to know more about the man behind the pen. Steinbeck did not live a super interesting life and portions of the book are a drag but the abruptness of the book helps in these slower sections.

One takeaway that helped my reading of his novels was Steinbeck’s view of people as a single celled organism. He sees groups of people acting as a whole part. This helped me understand the relationship between George and Lennie and the Joad family and the other migrant families in Grapes of Wrath. The family unit that sticks together and acts together.

The Grapes of Wrath:

Next, I read the book that is perhaps the most well known of Steinbeck’s works, The Grapes of Wrath. This book centers on the Joad family as they make their way across the country from Oklahoma to California in search of work and a better life. The book is set during the dust bowl and the great depression and times were hard for most Americans but this area was hit especially hard.

During their travels, the Joad’s encounter many different characters and settings and meet many terrible and wonderful people. The story centers around the poor people and shows their goodness throughout while making the corporations and law enforcement look bad. I can see why this book was controversial when first published. I won’t get into all that here as you can read it and decide for yourself.

The story itself is painful but beautiful as the family encounters natural disasters, starvation, car troubles, and casts of shady characters. Ma and Pa stand out as the characters that pull the family through all the situations on their journey. The ending felt a little abrupt to me and left me wishing for more. I think that was his point and I can see the reason for ending the book the way he did.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, for me, East of Eden remains my favorite Steinbeck book and I had planned on reading a couple of his shorter novels but decided this was adequate for now. I think I have learned to appreciate Steinbeck even if he is not among my favorite authors, his writing style is poetic and beautiful but can also feel heavy. If you are new to Steinbeck, I would recommend starting with Of Mice and Men as a short primer to get a feel for his style and dialect he chooses.